Thursday, March 27, 2008

Why I am Still a Painter

I was about to write a standard defensive post about why I continue to pursue the hidebound, retro, unfashionable art of painting, even though painting has been declared officially Dead, lo these twenty or thirty years, even though major contemporary art institutions seem to be sharing in this perspective, and even though it seems to be automatically assumed by the Art World Intelligentsia that a painter cannot possibly also be intelligent, progressive, and a unique original thinker.

Then I went to the Pulse Art Fair today, and changed my mind. Go see the Pulse Art Fair. It's wonderful. I will post about it when I'm not between seeing the Pulse Art Fair and throwing a birthday party for my honey. :-)

So, the reason I am still a painter has nothing to do with repeating an archaic Form, in a mechanical manner, the way the vast majority of persons who sell paintings at plein-air art fairs in places like Canton, Texas or Holton, Kansas do. It has to do with needing a complex and subtle language in which to communicate complex, subtle ideas; it has to do with using a medium that communicates kinesthetically and emotionally as well as visually; it has to do with the pragmatism inherent in using a language that has already been invented, and helping it proceed in its evolution, instead of having to invent an entirely new one, and explain it as I go along.

Also, as difficult and expensive as it is to find the space for a painting studio anywhere in the world, the difficulty and expense is nowhere near that of a welding shop, a film studio or a print shop.

(All images--screenprint, pencil and watercolor on paper, product of recent class at Lower East Side Print Shop. Now I must obtain a print shop residency so I can pursue this line of thought.)

I saw a lot of doodling back in the day, in my professional life. It was in the field of finance, but an emotionally charged branch of it.

Some of the most evocative sketches I've ever seen were those doodles. One included a page from my boss that was downright frightening. He did not have the self-undertanding to realize the things he'd just *said* in that doodle.

Medical filed is the important field in human life. Medical research is day to day used new technology for good health for human. Present human is believed in only allopathic medicine. Those changes reflect a shift in the role of tenure in academic medical institutions. Traditional tenured and tenure-track research positions are still common, but they are becoming a smaller proportion of the total medical school faculty. These days, new faculty members are increasingly likely to be hired in nontenure-track positions, a better match for the short-term grant funding the institutions rely on. And many of those who do manage to land a coveted tenure-track position face reduced financial guarantees and a challenging funding environment.